One hundred years ago this July, a quiet man from Vermont — Calvin Coolidge — made a decision that changed the course of Sino-American relations.

On July 16, 1925, President Coolidge signed Executive Order 4268, officially forgiving the final $6.1 million in war reparations owed by China after the Boxer Rebellion. But rather than simply cancel the debt, he redirected the money to support education and mutual understanding. The funds established the China Foundation for the Promotion of Education and Culture and helped shape the future of both nations.

It was a bold choice, though entirely in keeping with Coolidge’s New England roots. Raised in Vermont and shaped by Massachusetts politics, he believed in thrift, restraint and the long-term value of education. While others turned inward after the First World War, Coolidge invested in something bigger: a vision of America that led not just with power, but with principle.

The 1925 remission was not the first time the United States had returned part of the Boxer Indemnity. Twenty years earlier, President Theodore Roosevelt agreed to refund a portion of the original reparations. He did so after being lobbied by Liang Cheng, a Chinese diplomat and former star baseball player at Phillips Academy in Andover. Roosevelt was persuaded that the original amount had been overcharged and that the surplus should be used to educate Chinese students in the United States.

That decision created the Boxer Indemnity Scholarship Program, which allowed a generation of Chinese students to study at America’s best universities. Some became Nobel laureates, like Chen-Ning Yang and Tsung-Dao Lee. Others, like Yale-educated H. H. Kung and Wharton-trained K. P. Chen, played key roles in Chinese World War II leadership. Still others returned home as professors, engineers, doctors and public servants. Many of them returned to China carrying American ideas of academic freedom, merit and civic responsibility.

Coolidge’s action in 1925 expanded Roosevelt’s vision. His remission did not just bring more students to American campuses; it strengthened China’s intellectual infrastructure at home. The China Foundation preserved rare Chinese texts, funded faculty salaries at Peking University and supported the founding of the China Institute in New York. In every case, it reflected Coolidge’s conviction that education was not a luxury but a form of diplomacy and a long-term investment in peace.

That legacy remains relevant today, especially here in New England, where so many of these stories began. From Andover and St. Paul’s to Harvard and Dartmouth, our region has long been a bridge between East and West, a place where students from around the world come to learn, grow and build connections that outlast any one moment in politics.

But that bridge is under strain.

Today, growing suspicion toward Chinese students threatens a tradition that once strengthened both nations. Visas are revoked without explanation. Researchers face blanket scrutiny. Families who once dreamed of sending their children to Dartmouth or UMass now hesitate, unsure if their children will be welcomed or watched.

To be clear: National security is important. Universities must guard against real risks. But when all Chinese students are treated with suspicion, we do not just close doors—we undermine our own strength.

I saw the other side of this story first-hand. In 2013, I graduated from the University of Pennsylvania alongside dozens of Chinese classmates. We studied late into the night, debated politics and philosophy and became lifelong friends. Today, I serve as principal of an international school in China, where many of my students dream of studying in a New England university. But lately, their dreams come with doubts.

Coolidge never used the phrase “soft power.” But a century ago, he understood that America’s greatest influence lay not only in its economy or military but in its ideas and in its willingness to share them.

As we mark the 100th anniversary of his remission, we should remember that strength and openness are not opposites. They are two sides of the same coin.

Coolidge believed that learning could lead where politics sometimes failed. That belief shaped decades of Sino-American exchange. It deserves our attention now more than ever.

Christopher J. Dawe is a New Hampshire native, principal of an international school in Qingdao, China, and a Ph.D. candidate at University College London, where he studies the history of Sino-American educational exchange.